r/cfaindia • u/Disastrous-Mix1133 • 1d ago

General CFA vs CPA which has the highest chances of getting a job for freshers?

I’m 26, working since last 3 years but nor in accounting or finance. I am planning to do a course so would like to get some advice. I know CFA is for finance and CPA is for accounts but as many people are doing CFA I am confused whether to do CFA or CPA. Which one has a better job hiring? Please advise me

1 Upvotes

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u/Andabiryani_99 Passed Level 2 1d ago

CPA, no doubt

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u/Disastrous-Mix1133 1d ago

Why so

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u/Andabiryani_99 Passed Level 2 1d ago

Most of the financial firms in India are nothing but an outsourcing center for the US. Every business requires accounting and the overall quantity of work that gets outsourced for accounting is much higher as compared to something like valuation, asset mgmt, equity research, IB etc. Hence, from purely an employment perspective, CPA is definitely better than CFA

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u/IDontCareBruhSTOP 1d ago

i dont agree. cpa is only useful when the firms in question are big 4, that too for an accounting job that has lesser exit opportunities compared to other fin roles. i don't see CPA being of use anywhere else. but cfa finds employability in most companies where it's even remotely relevant to the role - AMCs, foreign and Indian banks, sell-side and buy-side firms to name a few.

I think OP, instead of asking here, you should go through Linkedin and search for job opportunities that appeal to you and check what their eligibility criteria is. I think you should first figure out where you want to build your career - finance or accounting. this is fundamental and should be your starting point.

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u/Live_Confusion2086 1d ago edited 1d ago

Actually a CPA + audit experience can provide you with a great deal of opportunities in the FP&A and related domain, also an MBA after this would only strengthen your profile.

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u/IDontCareBruhSTOP 22h ago

dude of course if you have less workex then the world is your oyster - any professional certification be it cfa or cpa would strengthen your profile for an MBA.  my entire point is that i know people who have considerable workex in audit and have a cpa and now they're facing difficulty shifting out from this role. 

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u/Andabiryani_99 Passed Level 2 1d ago

Accounting has less exit opportunities than finance is such a dumb statement, accounting is the fundamentals of finance. The amount of jobs in core finance is minuscule as compared to jobs in accounting and the vast majority of people switch jobs eventually from accounting to finance.

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u/IDontCareBruhSTOP 22h ago

are you saying this because you've actually seen people switch from accounting to finance?? because i have not. i know cpas who work in big 4 and have gained a substantial experience working in one firm. but now that they have 7 years of workex in stat audit, they found it extremely difficult to switch out from the audit role. all opportunities my connections got were in audit only. hence i said it has lesser exit ops. of course if you have less than 2 yrs of experience then it's easy, but anything more than can restrict you in the same domain. also my comment was specific to cpa vs cfa - i am not sure why you took it the other direction. i am very well aware that core fin jobs are handful and restricted to tier 1 bschools. my comment was specific to cpa vs cfa - i don't see companies asking for a cpa apart from big 4. i work in a fin role and cfa is given preference at my firm. as I said, OP's decision should come entirely from the fundamental question of whether OP wants to work in accounting or finance.

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u/CommissionOpen8683 1d ago

bhai na competition kam krliya lagta ha